


Tailspin

by heydoeydoey



Series: Everything 'verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, the ATM incident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: Danny Puckerman’s return sends them all into a tailspin. Prequel to Everything.
Series: Everything 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638469
Kudos: 20





	Tailspin

Puck lets himself into the house after Nana drops him off from Temple and can tell something is off right away. He’s not sure what it is, but there’s a tension he can feel almost immediately, and a strange anxiety wraps its fist around his stomach.

“Noah? Is that you?”

Usually, he’d shoot back a smartass remark (“who else would it be?”) but today the attitude gets stuck in his throat. Instead he manages a “yeah, Ma. It’s me.”

“Come into the kitchen.”

And that’s not new, really. She likes to nag him the second he gets in the door most days, but usually she does it at his back while he climbs up the stairs to change his clothes or lock himself in his room. (Although locking himself in his room has become way harder now that he doesn’t have a door.)

He unties the laces of his black Converse instead of just toeing out of them, and he takes the time to put them on the shoe rack in the hall closet instead of leaving them on the mat in front of the door. He hangs up his letterman jacket and wishes he could just climb up the stairs and hide from whatever his mom wants him to see or do or talk about in the kitchen. Puck doesn’t pretend he has a sixth sense like Crazy-Eyes Berry claims to, but his childhood equipped him with the right skills to know when shit was about to hit the fan.

He sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets before forcing himself to walk towards the kitchen. The first thing he spots is Sarah, sitting on the counter and clinging to an unopened can of orange soda like it’s her lifeline. She’s staring at the table, and once Puck rounds the corner, he understands why.

Their mother is still in her scrubs from work, leaning against the refrigerator, while she looks at the man sitting at the table. He’s older than Puck remembers—obviously, Puck reminds himself, it’s been eight years since Puck last saw him—but the things Puck remembers most are still there: the buzzed haircut, the tanned skin, cheekbones jutting out a little too sharply, the laugh lines (Puck’s not sure where they came from, because he doesn’t remember there being much laughter). Puck’s basically looking at a version of himself, twenty years from now, if twenty years from now he’s an asshole who abandoned his wife and kids, addicted to booze and who knows what else. Judging from the bottle in his hand, Danny Puckerman still isn’t sober.

“Well, look at you.” A feral grin spreads across Danny’s face. “Aren’t you a chip off the old block?”

Puck wants to insist that he isn’t, but there’s no denying it. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s got his mother’s nose, Puck might actually be a carbon copy of his father. His stomach roils and he can’t help moving as far away from Danny as possible, his back hitting the counter. Sarah presses her knee against his ribcage, and he wishes he could cling onto her the way she’s clinging onto the soda can, but he knows better than to let his father spot fear.  
  
“Noah,” Mama says sharply. “Say hello to your father.”

What. The. Fuck. Puck is pretty sure he’s stepped into the Twilight Zone. There is no possible way this is the same Rebekah Feldman who dropped the Puckerman as soon as Danny took off and spent the next eight years cursing every molecule of his person.

Puck mumbles a hello, wondering when his alarm’s going to go off and he’ll be jolted out of this nightmare.

“What was that, son?”

Puck pulls a face at the word and suddenly he’s furious. “What are you doing here?” He spits out. Sarah’s knee pushes harder against his side, and he can feel her start to shake next to him. He doesn’t think she’s old enough to remember how things were, but she’s probably overheard enough since then to know Danny showing up out of the blue is definitely something to be scared of.

“Noah, that is no way to talk to your father.”

“Becks, relax.” Danny says to her, before returning his attention to Puck. “He’s just doing what I asked him to. Looking after our girls, right, Noah?”

“My girls.” Puck corrects, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Why are you here, Danny?”

“My band is taking, ah, a bit of a break so I thought I’d drive up and check in on you and your mom and your sister.” Danny takes a pull on his beer, his eyes challenging Puck to contradict him. He sets the bottle on the table again. “That reminds me. Burt Hummel’s garage still going? The Camaro could use a bit of a tune up.”

“How do you know Mr. Hummel?” Puck asks sharply.

“Burt and I played JC ball together. Lost touch after he knocked up that snobby wife of his. His boy’s your age. A fag, isn’t he?”

“Leave Kurt out of this.” Puck snarls and his mother’s eyes snap towards him and he recognises the panic on her face. He understands it then. Knowing his mother is scared makes this situation even worse.

“The garage isn’t open.” She says carefully. “Burt’s not well.”

“Shame.” Danny shrugs. “So, Noah, your mother tells me you’re on the football team.”

Puck shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Guess that means you date all the cheerleaders.”

“Yep. I’m a real stud. Even got one of ‘em pregnant last year. Congrats, grandpa.” Puck’s not sure why he says it and he really wishes he hadn’t, the last thing he wants is for his father to ruin the last part of Beth that’s still his.

“Mazel tov.” Danny raises his beer in Puck’s direction, a mocking toast. “Where’s the baby?”

“With her mother.” Puck says. It’s not a lie, and he’s not about to give Danny any more than that. He doesn’t deserve to know about Beth, and he certainly doesn’t deserve to know that she and Shelby live in a nice house in the suburbs outside of Columbus. Puck doesn’t want to consider the possibilities of what Danny might do with that information.

Danny’s eyes narrow, like he knows Puck isn’t telling him something, but he lets the subject drop. “Why don’t we all order Chinese and catch up?”

Catch up. Like he’s an old friend they’d actually want to talk to, not the asshole that smacked them all around and disappeared without warning. Puck knows there’s probably some party going on tonight he could escape to, but that would mean leaving Mama and Sarah alone in the house with Danny and he knows he can’t do that. He’s not nine years old anymore. He’s seventeen and taller than his father and if his fight club taught him anything, it’s how to take care of himself.

So instead of going out and getting wasted while Mama and Sarah do their usual Friday night chick flick thing, Noah sits at the kitchen table opposite his father, glaring at him the whole way through their bizarre family dinner.

Danny goes out for a while after they finish their Chinese, presumably to find a bar. Puck remembers the pattern. Danny will come home, reeking of booze and ready for a fight.

“Mama,” Puck knows he’s pleading and how young he sounds, but right now he doesn’t care. “Let’s leave. We’ll go over to Nana’s and stay there until he leaves town.”

His mother lifts her chin stubbornly. “I’m not letting that man run me out of my house.”

  
* * *  


Puck starts sleeping in Sarah’s room, although sleeping is a bit of an overstatement. Sarah dozes fitfully while Puck lays awake every night for a week, listening to his dad stagger into the house and sprawl out on the couch downstairs. He stumbles through school like a zombie, and on Friday when he shows up with a black eye, nobody notices. Not Mr. Schue, not crazy Miss Pillsbury, not Finn, not even Figgins, who usually likes to keep tabs on the fights Puck gets into. (Actually, that’s not entirely true. Kurt notices the second he walks into glee club, but Puck ignores the concerned expression on the soprano’s face, because seriously, the last person he needs getting into this mess is Kurt. The other boy has enough to worry about right now.)

The irony is not lost on Puck that if it were Sarah showing up to school with a black eye or his mom showing up to work that way, everybody would be all over it and they might be able to get rid of Danny for good. But Puck’s not about to let his dad get anywhere near Sarah or Mama.  
  
When Puck gets home from football, Danny is sprawled across the couch, in boxers and a wife-beater (how appropriate), nursing what’s probably his sixth beer of the day and spinning through infomercials.

Puck ignores him, climbing the stairs and going to check on Sarah.

“Hey Monkey,” he says, stepping into her room and easing the door closed behind him.

“I want him to leave, Noah.” Sarah is curled up at the head of her bed, hugging her knees to her chest.

“I know.” Puck drops his backpack and sits down at the foot of the bed. “Me too.”

They hide out in Sarah’s room, doing their homework and waiting for their mother to come home. Not that her presence actually makes a difference. Puck hears the Volvo rattle into the driveway and then the front door swing open. He doesn’t try to hear the conversation between his parents, because he’s heard it before too many times.  
  
“Noah,” his mom calls up the stairs. “Will you drive your father to the 7-Eleven? I’m going to get dinner started.”

Sarah shoots him a look. “He’s finished the beer, I guess.”

“Yep.” Puck sighs and gets to his feet, heading wearily down the stairs. The last thing he wants is to be trapped in an enclosed space with Danny for any amount of time, but refusing feels like asking for trouble.

Danny is leaning in the kitchen doorway when Puck makes it downstairs.

“Your truck is blocked in,” his mom says, “so you can take my car.”

“’kay.” Puck grabs the keys off the hook next to the door. “Let’s go.”  
  
The 7-Eleven is only five minutes up the road, and if Danny weren’t already halfway drunk, he probably could have walked it. He pulls into the lot and parks next to the door.  
  
“Leave the engine running.” Danny instructs, and Puck gets a shiver down his spine, because he knows that tone of voice. He’s used it himself, back when TP-ing houses and egging cars and nailing lawn furniture to roofs were his favourite pastimes. Somehow, he doubts his father is about to TP the 7-Eleven though. He watches warily as his father moves aimlessly through the fluorescent-lit store. Of course it isn’t aimless. If Puck ever wanted a lesson in casing a joint, this is it. He should put the car in gear, drive home, grab Mama and Sarah and get the fuck out of town. He puts his foot on the brake, reaching for the gearshift and suddenly the door opens and Danny is in the car telling him to drive, and for some reason the car is shooting forwards instead of backwards.

  
* * *  


“Noah, you have to tell them the truth.” His mother looks tired and disappointed; there are dark circles under her eyes and it’s weird to see her in something other than her scrubs.

“Did he leave?”

“I don’t understand why you’re protecting him. He tries to rob a convenience store and you’ve told the police some stupid lie about the ATM.”

“He’s gone right?” Puck wants to get up and walk back to his room. He wants to take his shirt off so it stops chafing against his nipple ring injury and he wants to stay in bed and count down the days until he’s out of this shithole.

“Yes. He knows better than to stick around when there are cops involved.”

Puck shrugs. “That’s all I wanted.”  
  
It’s probably the stupidest thing he’s ever done and it’s the sort of thing he’s never going to be able to leave behind him, but if it means he got rid of his dad and Mama and Sarah can sleep easy, then he figures it was worth it. 


End file.
